With known umbrella-shaped clothes-drying racks of the type to which the present invention pertains (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 2,289,450, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference), opening the umbrella-shaped clothes-drying rack at the initial stages of opening requires a comparatively large expenditure of force until the radial arms have reached a certain angular position relative to the vertical support pole. It has already been attempted to overcome this disadvantage by employing a pulling line which is guided in the manner of a block and pulley. But, even such a pulley-type pulling line device can only ease the spreading of the arms of the umbrella-shaped clothes-drying rack after the arms have been pivoted out of their vertical rest position by a certain angle, which has to be done manually.
A considerable improvement has been achieved in the umbrella-shaped clothes-drying rack in accordance with European Patent Disclosure EP 0 113 789-B1 (the entire contents of which are incorporated hereby by reference), wherein, with the umbrella-shaped clothes-drying rack folded up, the hinge axes of the spreading arms are located outside of an imaginary connecting line between the pivot axes of the arms and the holding shafts of the spreading arms. When pulling on the pulling line, this arrangement always results in a sufficient force component oriented away from the vertical support pole for pivoting the arms out of their respective vertical rest positions. Therefore, the initial spreading of the arms by hand is no longer required. However, it is not possible to displace the hinge or pivot shafts of the spreading arms too far toward the outside, because otherwise the arms come to rest at a relatively great transverse distance from the pole in the folded state, which would increase the space requirements of the folded umbrella-shaped clothes-drying rack.